Does personality matter in social media? An approach to factors influencing citizen-given importance towards use by public administrations

Abstract

Citizen perceptions towards government social media use have been usually studied taking into consideration the impacts of socio-demographics, attitudinal or technological predispositions. However, recent developments on behavioral public administration call for integrating micro-level characteristics into research, considering personality might influence how public organizations communications and messaging are perceived. In this article, we study what factors are behind citizen-given importance towards public administration social media use, by focusing on personality traits. To approach personality traits we rely on the big five personality model and its core dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Methodologically, we resorted to the Spanish case, conducting an original survey targeting citizens living in the largest municipalities. Results show introversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness making citizens give more importance to public administration social media use. However, neuroticism and extraversion seem to make citizens place less importance, particularly towards the promotion of participation and collaboration through social media. Age, gender and trust in government moderated the effects of some of these traits. These results might help public administrations better understand their audiences by integrating into their monitoring practices the prediction of personality traits from citizens' digital footprints. This can be further used to personalize communications and services.